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The AIFR represented the culmination of Popenoe’s career as a plant breeder, social hygienist, and eugenicist
remember this guy as well? click on his face to remind yourself
Like many of his contemporaries, Popenoe’s path to eugenics involved a sustained engagement with plant breeding.
why plant breeding, you might ask...
Basically, if you let two people with good traits heterogeneously procreate with each other, those traits will present in their offspring(s) and vice versa. This is the predominant idea amongst eugenicists, an idea that is based off plant breeding. qUiCK bIOloGy. Also known as Mendelian
life of paul
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around the same time
1908
hired by Pasadena Star
as a writer
1911
Popenoe wrote Date Growing in the Old World and the New
sent to Europe conduct a study of gvt, politics, and economic conditions
around the same time
Fairchild, "an influential member of American Breeders' Association, asked Popenoe to become the editor of ABA's journal" (Stern, 180)
START
critical period:
POPENOE REVAMPED THE JOURNAL OF HEREDITY
Journal of Heredity began to print articles on the topics that preoccupied most eugenicists of the day: feeblemindedness, the inferior stock of immigrants, the need for marriage and sterilization laws, and the transmission of undesirable traits (such as polydactylism or criminality) down the family line according to Mendelian ratios.
SIMPLY HELPED SPREAD THE ERRONEOUS IDEA TO THE PUBLIC OF EASILY-INFLUENCED AMERICANS
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